Concept of Mind in the Major Upanishads
by Gisha K. Narayanan | 2018 | 35,220 words
This page relates ‘The Psychological Aspects in the Upanishads’ of the study on the concept of Mind as found in the Major Upanishads: the philosophical backbone of the four Vedas. This study explores the various characteristics and psychological aspects of the mind (described by the Seers of ancient India thousands of years ago) including awareness (samjna), understanding (vijnana) and knowledge (prajnana).
2. The Psychological Aspects in the Upaniṣads
Many aspects in the Upaniṣadic philosophy can be explained in the psychology of mind or science of mind. The psychological speculations are the outcome of the philosophical doctrines. So these speculations in the Upaniṣad cannot be explained apart from philosophical doctrines.
One of the Upaniṣads, the Kena-upaniṣad starts with the question among the ten Upaniṣads. It asks:
“Who impels the mind to alight on its objects? At whose behest do men utter speech? What intelligence directs the eyes and the ears?
The Praśna-upaniṣad asks some questions like
“What are that sleep in man and what again are awake in him? Of these which God sees dreams? Whose is the happiness?”
Mind in the Upaniṣads is simply a subtle organ of action, and it is a material (annamayaṃ manaḥ), differing from the gross body only in the degree of grossness. It is not consciousness, but a material force that envelopes the consciousness. Pure consciousness is not an attribute of the mind. It is beyond mind; being independent of it. Thus the Vedic thinkers were concerned about the order in the outer universe and the inner world. The problems dealt by our ancient seers from the Vedic days were chiefly preoccupied with the problem of consciousness, the relation of body, sense organs and mind to consciousness and the states of consciousness, namely waking state, dreaming state, sleeping state and the fourth turīya, which is taken neither subjective nor objective. This is clear from the Māṇḍūkya-upaniṣad
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan points out that,
“The Upaniṣads affirm that Brahman on which all else depends, to which all existence aspire, Brahman which is sufficient to itself, aspiring to no other, without any need, is the source of all other beings, the intellectual principle, the perceiving mind, life and body. It is the principle which unifies the world of physicist, the biologist, the logician, the moralist, and the artist.”[1]